


If The Sun Refused To Shine (I Would Still Be Loving You)

by 1980shorrorfilm



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Waverly Earp, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught, F/F, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Lesbian Nicole Haught, Nicole Haught Backstory, Nicole Haught Needs A Hug, Nicole keeps hurting her hand in my recent fics, Self-Harm, Waverly Earp Takes Care of Nicole Haught, Wayhaught - Freeform, Young Nicole Haught
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-22 10:40:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17661122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1980shorrorfilm/pseuds/1980shorrorfilm
Summary: Nicole wakes up nearly every night in a cold sweat, heaving in breaths and trying to stop the tears streaming down her face. It used to be the same routine: calm down, take a shower, get Calamity, go back to bed. Most importantly, pretend it never happened.Now? Now she's sharing a bed with Waverly Earp, who isn't about to let her ignore her nightmares.





	If The Sun Refused To Shine (I Would Still Be Loving You)

**Author's Note:**

> Some backstory I built for Nicole. Sometime post 2x05. Nicole talks about her parents, abuse, and the need to feel.
> 
> title is from Thank You by Led Zeppelin. I own nothing and I apologize for any errors.

Nicole wakes up nearly every night in a cold sweat, heaving in breaths and trying to stop the tears streaming down her face. It used to be the same routine: calm down, take a shower, get Calamity and go back to bed. Pretend it never happened. Now, she's sharing a bed with Waverly Earp, who isn't about to let her ignore her nightmares. 

"Nicole," Waverly calls her name quietly, like she's afraid to startle Nicole. Waverly places a hand on Nicole's back and takes note of the way she flinches at the contact. After a moment, Nicole stands up rather abruptly and runs a hand through her hair. 

"I'm gonna take a shower," Nicole announces, disappearing through the bedroom's open doorway. Waverly trails along after her, confused and concerned. 

"Do you want me to join you?" Waverly asks, and she sees the struggle in Nicole's eyes. 

"N-No. No, I'm fine. It's fine." Nicole closes the bathroom door and leaves Waverly on the other side. She goes through the motions, turning on the water and peeling off her damp clothes. She just stands there, vaguely aware of the way the water is burning against her skin. She likes the way it runs down her face, leaving no sign that there are tears among the water droplets. It's hot, but Nicole doesn't really feel it. She doesn't really feel anything right now. 

Nicole looks down at her hands, veiny and pale but also splotchy with red from the heat of the water. Her right hand—her trigger hand, her  _punching_ hand— balls into a fist and she slams it into the tile on the wall. It makes a dull noise as pain cuts into her.  _This is nice,_ Nicole thinks, rearing back and punching it again.  _It feels good to feel something._

She does it again. And again. There's stripes of red painting her knuckles now, dripping onto the floor only to be washed away by the streams of water. She lets out a cry of pain when her knuckles hit the sharp edge of a tile where it meets the grout.  _Good._ She chuckles, though nothing's funny, and throws her hand into the wall again. The door slams open and she curses herself for not locking it when Waverly rips back the shower curtain. Nicole  _feels_ the pain in Waverly's face when she sees Nicole standing there with bloody knuckles and puffy eyes.

"Oh. . . Nic," She gasps softly, tears welling behind hazel eyes. Nicole is brought back from the edge for just a moment. She feels Waverly's hurt. Then the brunette is stepping under the water and Nicole, though only faintly, can feel her. Her clothes are still on, but she either doesn't notice or doesn't care. An arm wraps around Nicole's bare waist and another around her shoulders. Her head is pulled into Waverly's neck as she's guided out of the shower, still holding onto her hand tightly.

Waverly bundles Nicole in a thick blue towel and helps her sit down on the closed toilet lid. After getting the first aid kit, she kneels down in front of Nicole and starts silently cleaning up her wound. There's blood everywhere— dripping onto the towel and onto Waverly's arms and pants— and Waverly dismisses it while she tries to wrap her mind around why Nicole would be trying to possibly break her hand in the shower. She only speaks again when the blood is almost gone and she has to use something stronger than water to clean the cuts and scrapes littering her knuckles. "This is gonna sting a little, baby." Waverly presses a kiss to the skin of Nicole's knee before dabbing the alcohol onto her hand. 

Nicole doesn't even flinch.  

A few minutes later, her hand is wrapped in gauze and Waverly's leading her back to the bedroom, still soaking wet. She strips off her wet clothes and takes them somewhere—presumably the bathroom or Nicole's makeshift laundry room— before returning with a towel around her body. She picks out pajamas for Nicole, who's sitting feebly on the end of the bed with her hands limp in her lap. Waverly doesn't prod; Waverly kisses her forehead and helps her get dressed. Nicole's eyes, normally sparkling and warm, have a chilling sense of something that looks a lot like life's tragic cocktail of losing hope and painful past. 

They need to talk about this— Waverly knows that. But Waverly also knows that Nicole is shaky and vacant and doesn't need an interrogation right now. So she puts on her own pajamas and sits down next to Nicole. The taller woman is trembling. Shuddery, labored breaths leave her mouth in huffs as she hunches forward with her forearms on her knees. 

"What do you need?" 

"C-Calamity," Nicole manages. Waverly nods and walks away, returning with the orange tabby in her arms. Calamity Jane gives Nicole a judgmental once-over, nudging her with her face before curling up at her feet. Nicole  _smiles._ It goes away after a moment and Waverly is desperate to fix this.

"Hey," Waverly says softly. When Nicole's eyes meet hers, she looks so small, like a lost child. There are tears drying on her face and more welling in the corners of her eyes; her bottom lip is bleeding from where her teeth sunk into it. She takes Nicole's hand— the good one— and asks,"Can I come closer?" Nicole nods rather vigorously, allowing herself to be wrapped up in Waverly's arms. She smells like flowers and something rather fruity and Nicole takes it in deeply. After a few moments, her breathing starts to regain normalcy, and she leans heavily into Waverly. 

"Come here, love." Waverly beckons, pulling Nicole's head into her lap and running her fingers through short, red locks. Nicole can feel everything right now, and it's better than she dreamt of only minutes ago under the shower head. The heat of Waverly's skin through the soft flannel of her pajamas. The light scratch of short nails on her scalp, the fingers running through her hair. Waverly's even breathing as she hums perfunctorily. A heartbeat—though she's unsure whose— steady and loud.  _It feels good to feel something,_ Nicole thinks again.  _It's good. She's good. We're good._

Nicole and Waverly stay like that for what seems like forever, Nicole half asleep on Waverly's legs while the latter mutters reassurances and keeps her fingers tangled in red hair. Eventually, Waverly coaxes Nicole all the way into bed, and they hit the pillows with a newfound sense of relief. Nicole knows they'll have to talk about this. But she's exhausted, and her girlfriend is too. So she presses her face into Waverly's collarbone and just  _feels._

* * *

Another nightmare hits Nicole early in the morning. She starts the routine, grabbing underwear, sweatpants, and a t-shirt to take with her. She glances back at Waverly, who appears to be asleep, and sighs as she rounds the corner to the bathroom. This time the dream wasn't so bad— more like an aftershock of the previous one. It was enough to wake her, but not as violently as the last time, which Nicole is thankful for. She's not as numb, not really. She's  _feeling, w_ hich is enough. Though she is tempted to slam her fist into the tile again as she unwraps it. It's not like last night was the first time she's done it. The reasoning is somewhere between  _I deserve it_ and  _the pain feels good._

Almost as if Waverly read her mind, there's a knock on the bathroom door. "I'm coming in," Waverly affirms, voice muffled by the door. It swings open and Waverly steps over the threshold with clothes of her own in her arms. 

"What are you doing?" Nicole asks dumbly, despite being fairly certain of her girlfriend's intention. _Waverly doesn't trust me to be alone right now._ Nicole can't blame her, judging by her thoughts only moments before. 

She sighs as she sets her stuff down and comes over to Nicole. Waverly's hands run along her arms, coming up to cup her face. "Let's take a shower, okay?" She doesn't want to say it. Nicole gets it; she's perfectly fine with the words remaining in the fronts of their respective minds, out of the air. She only nods, stepping back and starting to undress. Her brown eyes are glued to the floor, face tinged pink. Nicole is  _never_ this bashful, so Waverly seeks to reassure her. Now rid of clothing herself, she says,"You're so beautiful." Nicole bites her lip to stop a smile from creeping onto her face. "Come on," Waverly prods, grabbing her hands and pulling her toward the water she'd turned on a minute before. It's warm, much less painful than the scalding shower she took yesterday.

Waverly notices the way Nicole's face scrunches as the stream washes over her hand, the contact stinging the cuts. She reaches gently for Nicole's wrist and presses a kiss to the back of her hand, meeting her eyes.

 _I love you,_ Waverly thinks, though she doesn't dare say it out loud. Waverly knows she loves Nicole, but can't bring herself to tell her. Waverly is sure Nicole loves her, so that's not the reason. But if she loves Nicole— and she  _really_ does—she can't put her in more danger that way. She stares up at the redhead and hopes that the look in her eyes is enough.

Nicole seems to be functioning well enough, not as pliant or idle as the night before. She almost ignores Waverly altogether as she attempts to scrub her skin of sweat and tears and any lingering fear. It doesn't work. Nicole has only been this scared a few times in her life. When it comes time, she grimaces down at her hand and sucks in a shaky breath. Waverly places her hand over Nicole's good one, causing Nicole to look down at her. The older woman's nostrils flare when the soap makes contact with her scraped knuckles; Waverly presses her against the wall and kisses her to distract from the pain. 

"I'm sorry," Waverly says softly as she wraps Nicole's hand back up. They're sitting on Nicole's bed, Brown eyes gaze up incredulously at her. Nicole asks, a bit disbelievingly,"For what? You didn't do anything."

Waverly smiles sadly. She cups her girlfriend's face, brushing a piece of damp red hair behind Nicole's ear. The brunette grazes her thumb along Nicole's cheekbone and sighs. "I know, darling. I'm sorry, for whoever did this to you. For whoever hurt you this badly. For whoever made you think it's okay to  _hurt_   _yourself_. I'm so, so sorry." 

Nicole doesn't answer.  _What am I supposed to say?_ Waverly gets it, understands Nicole's lack of response. Whatever is happening in Nicole's brain has been cultivating for a long time, collecting more toxicity as time passes. Contradiction is present in Nicole's thoughts; she wants to share this with Waverly— she  _trusts_ her. But she also wishes she could ignore it, because it's painful and it's hard and it reminds Nicole of all those times when she wasn't good enough. The way she suspects that she doesn't deserve Waverly. 

Nicole's not really sure what she's expecting. The rational part of her knows that Waverly isn't just going to up and leave, but she is new at this. Nicole might scare her with the stories of rejection and simple hatred. Then again, if anyone can understand the toll of a rough childhood and shitty past, it's Waverly.  _Doublethink,_ Nicole recalls, referring to the state of contradiction within her emotions. She read it in a book long ago that she's too anxious to remember the title of. 

"Nicole?" Waverly's voice, breathy and gentle, pierces her thoughts. "Hey, you spaced out. What's up?" There's no avoiding it; this conversation is happening and it's happening now. "I know you probably don't want to talk about this, but we—"

"Yeah, I know. We gotta," Nicole sighs. "It's okay. It's just, I've never really had to before."

"Have you never been in a serious relationship?" Waverly's eyebrow quirks up in surprise. 

"It's not that." There's something on Nicole's face that Waverly can't decipher. "It just hasn't been like this. We're different. You get it." Waverly smiles, running her thumb along the back of Nicole's hand. 

"Take your time."

Nicole takes a deep breath and tries to focus on the circles Waverly's is rubbing into her hand. "When I was a little kid, there was always something wrong with me. I didn't want to play house or dolls. But then they told me I was ' _too weak'_ to play baseball with the boys. I'd get reprimanded when I'd come home with grass stains on my jeans and messy hair. My mom didn't really like that." Nicole pulls down the collar of her shirt and Waverly sees a thin white scar against her shoulder. 

"Oh my. . . How did I not see that?"

"You were distracted." Nicole smirks, but her eyes aren't shining like they normally do. 

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. It's just part of the story. But yeah, they both did their fair share of that. So when I was in high school and realized I wanted to be a cop, they pretty much ignored me. There was still the occasional slap and one time my mom threw a bottle at me, but I got faster. Then in my senior year, when I came out, they disowned me altogether. I moved out the day after graduation. I spent a lot of time as a kid wondering why they hated me so much. I had near perfect grades, was captain of the basketball team and starting catcher on my softball team. I almost never got in trouble, aside from the times I'd get caught smokin' cigarettes behind the church. And they still just threw hands and words and toxins."

"Is that what the nightmares are about?"

"Sometimes, yeah. It's a lot of reliving moments from when I was a kid, only more intense and usually with worse outcomes than a couple bruises."

"Is that why you. . ." She pauses, rephrasing the question. "Do you think you deserve the pain?" 

"Waves, I don't want to die. I'm not suicidal and frankly, I don't really even want to hurt myself."

"Then why do you do it, Nic?" Waverly's eyes are sad and confused. Nicole sighs, running a hand through her hair. 

"I didn't even really care that they'd hit me. Every other aspect of my life was just this dull ache. I wasn't happy or sad. I wasn't even angry. I wasn't anything. I felt nothing. But I did feel it— the hurt. The pain was like a tether to know that I was actually still present. I started getting in fights just so I could take a hit every once in a while. I started boxing while I was in the academy. I pushed myself to the breaking point, and it felt  _amazing._ Because it felt. Because  _I felt._ It's fucked up— I know. But that's why the homophobic shit doesn't bother me. It hurts, and it makes me angry, so I'm  _feeling_ _something._ "

"That's awful. Not you, but the circumstance."

Nicole laughs dryly, "I know."

They sit in silence for a few moments while Waverly thinks about what she wants to say. "Why don't you try and feel good things? Like love or something that's positive?"

"I've tried. A lot. But in this kind of world, it's easier to find pain than not. And besides, no person before you has ever made me feel more than the pain has."

"Before me?"

"Yeah. You're kind of special, Waverly. We've been through more shit in the last few months than I have in years-long relationships. You feel good, Waves." Nicole laughs, for real this time, when Waverly's face flushes at her words. "I'm aware that sounds very sexual, but I mean it emotionally too. You're good. You're the best."

Waverly grins, pulling Nicole's face to hers and kissing her. "Promise me something?" She inquires. 

"Anything." Nicole replies, unflinching. Waverly shakes her head and says,"Not anything. That's not fair. Here's what I want you to promise me: If you feel when you're with me, next time you're numb or in this kind of mindset, don't resort to pain. Please, please come to me and we can talk or not talk and you can be upset or not upset. You can yell or stay silent and do whatever you want. Just  _please_ don't hurt yourself. I can't take that, Nic."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. But promise?"

"I promise. If I'm honest, this is the first time I've done it since we started dating. You're amazing."

"You're more than amazing," Waverly replies smoothly. She's getting better and better at the flirting game. "Now, come here." Nicole leans into Waverly, who hugs her tightly and kisses her hairline. Nicole mumbles something into her neck that sounds a lot like  _'I love you'_ , but Waverly doesn't quite believe her ears. On the off chance that is what Nicole said, Waverly hugs her tighter. "Nicole?"

"Mmm?" Nicole drawls lazily, exhaustion started to keep up with her.

"Thank you for talking to me."

"Thank you for listening."

This is definitely not how Waverly had expected the conversation to go, but she's glad it did. There's something about the nonchalantness of Nicole's voice in talking about her past that clues Waverly that they'll probably have to talk more about it someday. She'll welcome it, come time, but she's not going to push Nicole any further. This was a step, one they both needed, and Waverly is grateful for that, at the very least. 

Next time Nicole has a nightmare, she showers like normal, but not alone. She lets Waverly make her tea after, and the three of them—Nicole, Waverly and a begrudging Calamity Jane— snuggle on the couch. She listens as Waverly sings softly in her ear and runs her fingers through Nicole's hair. And she feels. 

 _This is nice,_ Nicole thinks as she nuzzles her face into Waverly's shoulder.  _It feels good to feel something._

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know what this was? I'm tired and kind of still have a headache(though i slept for like 4 hours today) and it's unedited. I dunno, hope you enjoyed. follow me on tumblr @angelhaught


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